The Doom Of A City Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCBCDEDFEEFFDGEGEHH IIJDJD A KLFFLKCMNOCOPPPO A QRRFPQFDQFSPDD C PFFPFFFF C FETTESFUVFASUAFUFFSU SWUFU A UUFXFUUXAFFFFFU A YZFYLFOA2FOA2VUB2B2V FFQQUUC2SVC2VFFRVUVC 2URC2 A UVUVURIURIFPPFAFFAVV C2C2 U UVUVUUHSASAHD2SU

IA
FROM out the house I creptB
The house which long had caged my homeless lifeC
The mighty City in vast silence sleptB
Dreaming away its tumult toil and strifeC
But sleep and sleep's rich dreams were not for meD
For me accurst whom terror and the painE
Of baffled longings and starved miseryD
And such remorse as sears the breastF
And hopeless doubt which gnaws the brainE
Till wildest action blind and vainE
Would be more welcome than supine unrestF
Drove forth as one possestF
To leave my kind and dare the desert seaD
To drift alone and farG
Dubious of any port or isle to gainE
Ignorant of chart and starG
Upon that infinite and mysterious mainE
Which wastes in foam against our shoreH
Whose moans and murmurs evermoreH
Insupportably sublimeI
Haunting the crowded tumult of our TimeI
Suspend its hurrying breathJ
Like whispers of sad ghosts and spirits freeD
From worlds beyond our life and deathJ
The unknown awful realm where broods EternityD
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IIA
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I paced through desert streets beneath the gleamK
Of lamps that lit my trembling life aloneL
Like lamps sepulchral which had slowly burnedF
Through sunless ages deep and undiscernedF
Within a buried City's maze of stoneL
Whose peopling corpses while they ever dreamK
Of birth and death of complicated lifeC
Whose days and months and yearsM
Are wild with laughters groans and tearsN
As with themselves and DoomO
They wage with loss or gain incessant strifeC
Indeed lie motionless within their tombO
Lie motionless and never laugh or weepP
All still and buried deepP
For ever in death's sleepP
While burn the quiet lamps amidst the breathless gloomO
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IIIA
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My boat lay waiting thereQ
Upon the moonless riverR
Whose pulse had ceased to quiverR
In that unnatural hush of brooding nightF
I thought Free breezes course the billowy deepP
And rowed on panting through the feverous airQ
Leaving the great main waters on in my rightF
For that canal which creeps into the seaD
Across the livid marshes wild and bareQ
So slowly faded back from sightF
As cloth a dream insensiblyS
Fade backward on the ebbing tide of sleepP
That city which had home nor hope for meD
That stifling tomb from which I now was freeD
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IVC
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Like some weak life whose sluggish moments creepP
Diffused on worthless objects yet whose tideF
With dull reluctance hard to understandF
Refrains its death in life from death's full sleepP
The river's shallow waters oozed out wideF
Inclosing dreary flats of barren sandF
So merged at last into the lethal wasteF
That bounds of sea and stream could not be tracedF
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VC
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Long languidly I rowedF
With sick and weary painE
Between the deepest channel's bitter weedsT
Whose rankness salt slime feedsT
And so out blindly through the dismal mainE
Now shaken with a long hoarse growling swellS
And soon the Tempest as a King who had sleptF
The sleep of worn out frenzy while his slavesU
Cowered still in stupor till he woke againV
Refreshed for carnage from his torpor leaptF
Breathed swarthy pallor through the dense low skyA
And hurrying swift and fellS
Outspeeded his own thunder bearing gloomsU
Then prone and instantaneous from on highA
Plunged down in one tremendous blastF
Which crashed into white dust the heaving wavesU
And left the ocean level when it pastF
There was a moment's respite silence reignedF
Such shuddering silence as may once appalS
The universe of tombsU
Ere the last trumpet's clangour rend them allS
And I sank down one frail and helpless manW
Alone with desolation on the seaU
To pray while any sense of prayer remainedF
Amidst the horrors overwhelming meU
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VIA
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How shall I tell that tempest's thunder storyU
The soldier plunged into the Battle stressU
Struggling and gasping in the mighty floodF
Stunned with the roar of cannon blind with smokeX
'Midst yells and tramplings drunk and mad with bloodF
What knows he of the Battle's spheric gloryU
Of heavenly laws that all its evil blessU
Of sacred rights of justice which invokeX
Its sternest pleading of the tranquil eyeA
Triumphant o'er its chaos of the MindF
Commanding all serene and unsubduedF
Which having first with wisest care designedF
Works to the end with vigilant fortitudeF
And from that field so drenched with angry bloodF
Shall reap the golden harvest VICTORYU
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VIIA
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There was a stupor stung with pain and fearY
Amidst the strangling surf flung on and onZ
There was bewilderment above all dreadF
Delirious calm and desperate joy austereY
Of revelling through the tempest lorn and loneL
My boat and I with dizzy swiftness spedF
In strange salvation from the certain doomO
Along the urgent ridges over reelingA2
And gathering up their ruins as they fledF
And down into the depths of scooped out gloomO
Whose crystal walls glowed black in the revealingA2
Of lightning kindled foam and up againV
Perched on the giddy balance of two wavesU
Which fiercely countering mingle with the shockB2
And rush aloft confused and tower and rockB2
Foaming with wild convulsion till amainV
The mass heaves down from struggling self destroyedF
And leaves us shuddering in a gulfy voidF
Confused and intermingled fire sea airQ
Wrought out their ravage for the thunders thereQ
Were echoing in the dreadly stormless cavesU
And shook the deep foundations of the seasU
The air was like an ocean drenched with sprayC2
Whose meteor flakes outflashed tumultuouslyS
Against the sinking heaven's black inclineV
When sudden lightnings seemed to burst their wayC2
Up through the deep to flood and fire its brineV
Ingulfing for each moment all the NightF
The blackness and the howling rage in lightF
More lurid and appalling a World pyreR
But heart and brain were overwrought and soonV
All vision reeling from my powerless eyesU
I lay in quiet mercy granted swoonV
As senseless as the boat in which I layC2
And we two things through all the agoniesU
Of night tornado sea and fireR
Were drifted passive on our fearful wayC2
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VIIIA
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I know not for what time I lay in tranceU
Nor in what course the tempest hurled us onV
At length to scarce believed deliveranceU
I woke and saw a sweet slow silent dawnV
Upgrowing from the far dim grey abyssU
So slow it seemed like some celestial flowerR
Unfolding perfect petals to its primeI
And feeling in its secret soul of blissU
Each leaf a loveliness for many an hourR
With amaranthine queenship over timeI
It grew its purple splendours flecked and starredF
With golden fire spread floating up the steepP
Until they sole possessed the mighty sweepP
Of crystal lucent aether its regardF
The blessing of a light of peace and loveA
Charmed with a gradual spell the sullen moodF
Of the sea giant until all subduedF
No more his huge bulk livid shook and hoveA
The meteor threatenings of his tawny maneV
No more growled lingering wrath and turbulent painV
But calm and glad th' unmonstered monster layC2
Beneath the royal sun's perfected swayC2
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IXU
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And there was Land Where seemed a bank of cloudsU
Piled in the South now nobly one by oneV
The pinnacles of lofty mountain peaksU
Flamed keen as stars enkindled by the sunV
Emerging as with life from out their shroudsU
Of silvern haze far cleft with roseate streaksU
And far beneath them down along the shoreH
A wave of low round hills gleamed pure and paleS
But soon like any human lifeA
The golden promise of whose dawn doth failS
Into the same drear noon of barren strifeA
Of which our hearts were weary sick of yoreH
The day grew chill and darkD2
And through its sullen hours the wintry galeS
Beat restlessly my bU

James Thomson



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